January 7, 2014 Momentum Investing
What market conditions make stock price momentum strategies crash? In the October 2013 version of their paper entitled “Momentum Profits, Market Cycles, and Rebounds: Evidence from Germany”, Martin Bohl and Marc-Gregor Czaja analyze performance statistics...
January 3, 2014 Big Ideas
Here is this Friday’s installment of Avoiding Investment Strategy Flame-outs, a short book we are previewing for subscribers. Chapter previews will continue for the next two Fridays. Chapter 7: “Thinking about Taxes” “To the extent that governments...
December 31, 2013 Individual Gurus, Investing Expertise
As of the end of 2012, we stopped adding forecasts to the Guru Grades database and published a preliminary report on findings. As of the end of 2013, we have completed the grading of all forecasts...
December 30, 2013 Momentum Investing, Technical Trading
Are momentum and trend-following strategies effective in tactical asset allocation to European equity sectors and countries? In the July 2013 version of their paper entitled “European Equity Investing Through the Financial Crisis: Can Risk Parity,...
December 27, 2013 Big Ideas
Here is this Friday’s installment of Avoiding Investment Strategy Flame-outs, a short book we are previewing for subscribers. Chapter previews will continue for the next three Fridays. Chapter 6: “Modeling at the Portfolio Level” “Evaluating strategies based...
December 24, 2013 Buybacks-Secondaries, Fundamental Valuation
Do firm efforts to pay shareholders directly (via dividends) and indirectly (via share repurchases and paydown of debt) translate to stock outperformance? In their May 2012 paper entitled “Enhancing the Investment Performance of Yield-Based Strategies”,...
December 23, 2013 Momentum Investing, Size Effect, Value Premium
How do value and momentum interact with each other and with size, economic and liquidity factors worldwide? In the November 2013 version of their paper entitled “Size, Value, and Momentum in Developed Country Equity Returns: Macroeconomic and...
December 20, 2013 Big Ideas
Here is this Friday’s installment of Avoiding Investment Strategy Flame-outs, a short book we are previewing for subscribers. Chapter previews will continue for the next four Fridays. Chapter 5: “Checking for Market Adaptation” “The market is a...
December 18, 2013 Short Selling
Does the limited supply of lendable shares substantially inhibit successful short selling? In the November 2013 draft of their paper entitled “In Short Supply: Equity Overvaluation and Short Selling”, Messod Beneish, Charles Lee and Craig...
December 17, 2013 Technical Trading
Does stock pairs trading work reliably in the mature UK market? In their November 2013 paper entitled “Pairs Trading in the UK Equity Market: Risk and Return”, David Bowen and Mark Hutchinson examine the profitability...
December 16, 2013 Sentiment Indicators
How fast must attentive investors be to exploit the information in new releases of major sentiment and economic indicators? In their November 2013 paper entitled “Early Peek Advantage?”, Grace Xing Hu, Jun Pan, and Jiang...
December 13, 2013 Big Ideas
Here is this Friday’s installment of Avoiding Investment Strategy Flame-outs, a short book we are previewing for subscribers. Chapter previews will continue for the next five Fridays. Chapter 4: “Accounting for Implementation Frictions” “Investment frictions (costs) include...
December 12, 2013 Commodity Futures, Momentum Investing
Is simple momentum the secret sauce of Managed Futures funds? In their 2013 paper entitled “Demystifying Managed Futures”, Brian Hurst, Yao Ooi and Lasse Pedersen examine how well simple trend-following strategies based on time series...
December 11, 2013 Sentiment Indicators
Both “Stock Return Correlations and Retail Trader Herding” and “Stock Return Correlations and Equity Market Stress” imply that extremely high correlations among stock returns accompany severe market declines and may signal market bottoms. Is there some...
December 10, 2013 Strategic Allocation
Are there easily implementable life cycle investing strategies reliably superior to the conventional glidepath from equities toward bonds? In their June 2013 paper entitled “The Glidepath Illusion… and Potential Solutions”, flagged by a subscriber, Robert...
December 9, 2013 Volatility Effects
Do upside (downside) market volatility surprises scare investors out of (draw investors into) the stock market? In the November 2013 version of his paper entitled “Dynamic Asset Allocation Strategies Based on Unexpected Volatility”, Valeriy Zakamulin investigates...
December 6, 2013 Big Ideas
Here is this Friday’s installment of Avoiding Investment Strategy Flame-outs, a short book we are previewing for subscribers. Chapter previews will continue for the next six Fridays. Chapter 3: “Avoiding or Mitigating Snooping Bias” “Snooping bias, also...
December 3, 2013 Strategic Allocation
Is diversification across stock and bond factors superior to diversification across asset classes? In their August 2013 report entitled “Investing in Systematic Factor Premiums”, Kees Koedijk, Alfred Slager and Philip Stork measure the gross performances of...
December 2, 2013 Big Ideas
How should investors assess the credibility of investment strategy backtests? In his October 2013 paper entitled “Telling the Good from the Bad and the Ugly: How to Evaluate Backtested Investment Strategies”, Patrick Beaudan recommends ways to judge...
November 29, 2013 Big Ideas
Here is this Friday’s installment of Avoiding Investment Strategy Flame-outs, a short book we are previewing for subscribers. Chapter previews will continue for the next seven Fridays. Chapter 2: “Making the Strategy Logical” “Making an investment/trading strategy...
November 25, 2013 Strategic Allocation
What is the global financial asset allocation? In their November 2013 paper entitled “The Global Multi-Asset Market Portfolio 1959-2012”, Ronald Doeswijk, Trevin Lam and Laurens Swinkels construct the aggregate portfolio of all investors encompassing market...
November 22, 2013 Big Ideas
Starting today and continuing for the next eight Fridays, we are previewing for subscribers a short book entitled Avoiding Investment Strategy Flame-outs. The initial installments are: “Introduction” “Why do investment/trading strategies that test well on historical...
November 20, 2013 Technical Trading
Motivation to avoid being “burned by the turn” tempts trend followers to increase measurement frequency and/or use stop-losses. Do these approaches help momentum players jump the turn? In their October 2013 paper entitled “The Significance...
November 19, 2013 Strategic Allocation, Volatility Effects
Are implied volatility futures good diversifiers of underlying indexes? Do implied volatility futures for different indexes represent a reliable pair trading opportunity? In their November 2013 paper entitled “Investment Strategies with VIX and VSTOXX Futures”,...
November 18, 2013 Commodity Futures, Strategic Allocation
Have investors overwhelmed commercial traders in commodity futures markets, thereby depressing the value of commodity futures as a diversifier of stocks and bonds? In his November 2013 papers entitled “Implications of Financialization for Commodity Investors:...